Andriani Fili, Research Assistant, Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford/PhD candidate, Sociology Department, Lancaster University
While all eyes are fixed on the looming emergency at Greece’s numerous border locations and refugee camps, the thousands who are administratively detained have been, for many years, largely unaccounted for. Despite the scale and inhumanity of detention practices, immigration detention in Greece has rarely been subjected to close scrutiny. This research helps redress this imbalance through an innovative combination of empirical research, first-hand accounts and personal involvement with detention issues. Timely and wide-ranging, this is the first ever comprehensive academic study of immigration detention in Greece and the first systematic record of resistance and activism against it.
In remote places, behind wire and under constant surveillance, forms of resistance flourish. Humanitarian NGOs, left politicians and media outlets have periodically expressed concern about what is going on behind iron doors, however, they have largely failed to access detention centres and/or to report on conditions within them. This project seeks to understand why and how resistance and activism have been so effectively silenced and neutralised, rendering inhumane detention practices in Greece resilient to change. In doing so, it will extend our understanding of state power, social exclusion and belonging under conditions of humanitarian deficits and the erosion of refugee and migrant rights.